Carlos: Radio Host
by mistertimn
Summary: Cecil comes down with the flu and has to enlist Carlos to broadcast the news.
1. Chapter 1

Evening was beginning in Night Vale. All over the desert town people were getting ready to leave their jobs and return to their homes, draw the shades, and try to have some form of food that didn't include wheat for dinner before another long night of pretending to sleep.

One man in particular was preparing to begin his work. Or at least, he should have been. Cecil lay in his bed under a rumpled blanket, fast asleep. A bottle of Advil lay on the nightstand, and used tissues lay around the room like motionless tumbleweeds. Jerked out of his drug induced sleep by his alarm clock, he sits up quickly, only moan loudly in pain as his body reminded him how sick he was. Sniffling furiously, trying to clear his sinuses which were more blocked up than route 800 during rush hour, he shakily sits up again and pulls back the covers. The LED screen of his clock glowed faintly, reminding him that his broadcast was due to start in twenty minutes.

Silently cursing the common cold, he stands up and locates his bath robe hanging on the back of the ensuite door, and slips it on, as well as the matching slippers. Sneezing suddenly, he wipes his already rubbed raw nose with a tissue out of the box on the counter by the sink. He catches sight of his reflection in the mirror and grimaces. Eyes clogged with sleep, nose clogged with mucus, head stuffed with cotton. He looked awful. Coughing, he tries a few lines to see what his voice sounds like.

"Hello listene-" he trails off into a fit of coughing. The coughs somehow sounded better than the shadow of his normally candy coated voice that now resided in his burning throat. Silently cursing, he goes back into the bedroom and sits down on his bed, glancing at the clock. Fifteen minutes.

Swearing, Cecil goes to the kitchen and picks up the phone to call in sick to the station. As he finishes dialling the area code, he stops, getting a better idea. The news had to get to the people, and if he couldn't do it, he knew who could. He hangs up, and dials another number.

Feet propped up on his desk and a newspaper over his face, Carlos is sleeping soundly in his office at the end of a long day of taking apart clocks. When the phone rings, he sits up, falling out of his chair and landing on his back on the ground, feet still up on the desk. The newspaper floats down gently onto his stomach. Standing up and dusting himself off, he checks the display on the phone to see who's calling. Of course he has call display, it's the 21st century after all. Seeing the name 'Cecil', he picks up.

"Hello Cecil."

A voice that definitely doesn't sound like Cecil responds. "Hi, Carlos. I need a favour."

Carlos sits back down in his chair. "What's wrong with your voice?"

A few muffled coughs are heard before a response. "I've got the worst cold in the history of the universe, and I'm supposed to be on the air in twelve minutes."

Carlos nods. "Mmm. So, what can I do for you?"

A little hesitantly, Cecil says. "Well. I'm in no shape to do the news. And I don't know how busy you are at the moment. But I was wondering. If it's not too much trouble. Could you do the broadcast tonight?"

"O- oh." Carlos responds. "Well, there's nothing happening over here. But I have no broadcast training and honestly I don't think I'd be very good."

"Pshaw, you'd be wonderful." another set of coughs.

"But. But how would I know what to read? How to work any of the controls?" Carlos says, sounding a bit nervous. He was never one for speaking to large groups of people, even over the radio.

"Shush, you'll do fine." Cecil raspily assures him. "Everything is written down and all you need to do is read it. Our new intern Jeremy can help get you set up." he pauses, checking the clock. "You've got 5 minutes, have fun!"

Before Carlos can protest, Cecil hangs up the phone and immediately goes back to bed, hoping to sleep off his ailment.


	2. Chapter 2

Rushing into the studio, lab coat trailing behind him, Carlos taps on the door to the broadcasting room. A very worried intern Jeremy opens it.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, uh. Hi. I'm Carlos and, uh. Cecil asked me to do the broadcast today cause he's sick." Carlos stammers.

Jeremy nods, looking him up and down. "Well it's not exactly radio station attire, but it'll do." he steps away from the doorway. "Come on in, we're on in a minute."

Carlos walks into the small room, looking around. A microphone and stack of paper filled with text sit on the white table in front of a plain beige chair. Jeremy pulls it out for him, and gestures for Carlos to sit down, which he does. Picking up the papers, Carlos looks them over.

"S- So I just, read this. Word for word?"

"Pretty much, you can embellish a bit, but just stick to that if you're having trouble. I'll handle everything else from the booth." he points to a currently unlit LED on the mic. "When that's on, you should be talking. Now let's get going." Jeremy quickly states, heading into the sound booth and sitting down, affixing a large pair of headphones to his ears. Fiddling around for a bit, he looks up at Carlos and nods, before flicking a switch.

The red light turns on.

"Gah!" Carlos exclaims, rustling the papers back into the right order and adjusting the mic. He squints at the first line.

"T- Time and space are just that, time and space. Or. Or are they? What the hell, oh there's more." he clears his throat. "W- Welcome. To Night Vale."

The red light blinks out, and Jeremy cues the intro music, giving Carlos a semi-enthusiastic thumbs up. Trying to calm his nerves, Carlos takes a few deep breaths.

After a moment, Jeremy points through the window to Carlos, and the red light turns on again, prompting him to begin reading the first story.

"H- Hello, Night Vale. I'm. I'm Carlos, and I'll be filling in for Cecil today. Heh." sweat is already forming on his forehead.

"Our uh," he clears his throat. "Our first story to day is… well umm, apparently all off the honeybees in town have, have turned into pebbles?" he laughs nervously, was it hot in here?

"Yeah uhm, witnesses report that suddenly all of the bees were uh, suddenly bathed in a flash of white light, before dropping to the ground in the form of small rocks. That's uh, that's not possible actually but I, I guess it happened if it's written here, heh." he fans himself with the papers. It was definitely hot in here.

"The Sheriff's Secret Police have responded to the incident quickly, and can be seen throughout town knelt down on the sidewalks and roads, sweeping the newly formed rocks into, into dustpans with small brushes." wiping the sweat off his brow, he continues. "No word from city council on why this may have uh, have occurred…"

Taking a few deep breaths and tugging at his collar, he move on. "Apparently, residents of the housing development Dune Heights are reporting that. That uh… they don't actually exist? What? I don't underst-"

Jeremy casts a stern look through the window at Carlos, and he nods quickly, getting back on track.

"Right, right, sorry… Apparently as many as 15 people that claim to live in the development al- also claim to /not/ live in the development as it, and al of them, are not real." shaking his head, he turns the page, sighing.

"Night Vale High School announced today that thanks to a generous grant from the city, they will be outfitting the home economics lab with brand new… Nuclear powered stoves and ovens?! Oh my god that's-"

Another look from Jeremy, stay on track. Carlos nods nervously, remembering what he had heard about station management from Cecil.

"With the uh, leftover funds, they will also to be able to purchase enough hazard suits to protect half the class at a time from the radiation that these new appliances will emit." he give the paper a look of pure exasperation. What the hell is wrong with this place.

"And now, according to my notes here. It's time for traffic."

He brushes his hair out of his eyes and continues. "The intersection by the exit 7 on-ramp to route 800 is experiencing heavy congestion due to that fact that all of the traffic lights suddenly turned red, and have not changed to anything else for the past forty five minutes. Drivers have been waiting patiently at the light, while more and more traffic piled up behind them, creating a queue that stretches almost all the way down 24th street. The city maintenance department estimates they will be able to fix the light and clear the delay in the next… Five days?!" he exclaims. "Jeez, get a move on Night Vale. It's not that hard to fix a traffic light."

He flips the page, adding. "More on this as it develops. Very slowly, like the traffic.

Taking a deep breath to rid himself of some of the intense frustration the news was causing him, he collect himself enough to say:

"And. And now, we got to… The weather! Ohthankgod…"

He checks his papers for the forecast, and when he doesn't find anything, he looks to Jeremy. "Jeremy, there's uh. There's nothing here." Suddenly, the red light blinks out, and Jeremy takes off his headphones.

"Yeah I know. Normally during the weather I just hit the cloud button. Not really sure what it does, but you can go take a break if you want."

Looking very relieved, Carlos stands up and practically runs out of the tiny room. Bathroom bathroom, where's that bathroom? Eventually, he locates it and immediately turn on the tap, splashing the cold water on his face. Rubbing his eyes before turning it off, he stares at himself in the mirror, groaning. What the hell did he get himself int- isthataCAT?!

Eyes wide in fear and wonder, he turns to look at the animal, floating a few feet off the ground and staring at him.

"Mrrow."

Very confused, Carlos shuffles sideways out of the bathroom past the cat, and quickly dashes back down the hall to the broadcasting room.

Smoothing out the creases in his lab coat and scratching the itch on his leg that had been bothering him since he started broadcast, Carlos opens the door, and is beckoned into the booth by Jeremy, who's holding a phone receiver.

"It's Cecil." he says.

Nodding, Carlos takes the phone and puts it up to his ear. "Hello, Cecil."

After a short sneeze, Cecil begins to speak. "Hello, Carlos. I just needed to call and thank you again. You're doing great!"

Chuckling nervously, Carlos replies "Heh, yeah I guess…"

"Now hurry up, the weather will be over soon."

Carlos nods and hands the phone back to Jeremy, who hangs up. Taking in some air through his nose and pushing it out through his mouth, Carlos takes his seat in front of the mic and prepares to continue with the news.


	3. Chapter 3

Slightly more comfortable now, Carlos shuffles his papers and locates the next news story. "Hello again, everyone." he clears his throat. "More on that story about Night Vale High's new nuclear powered ovens. It seems that the radiation they emit has caused some of the student's food to become sentient. The school is now under siege by some form of, huh, living lasagne with a side of potatoes. It is recommended that all residents stay back at least 10 metres from the school to avoid any horrible mutations. Parents will be able to pick up their children whenever it is safe to approach them."

He figured that it was easiest to forget about how illogical and crazy these stories were and just dictate from the page. It was hard, and in the back of his mind he was planning to go out as soon as he could and investigate everything that was happening around the town. Turning the page, he sighs in relief. It's the last story.

"And finally, Night Vale would like to remind you about the oncoming destruction of our world. I…" he skims the rest of the article, furrowing his eyebrows. "Please be prepared for you eventual demise, which will be occurring anywhere from now, to the distant, distant future. Thank you for listening Night Vale, Cecil should be back tomorrow. Goodnight!"

The red light blinks out, Jeremy removes his headphones and shuts off the lights in the booth, stepping out to congratulate Carlos on a successful radio broadcast. Carlos smiles, and thanks him before leaving the studio for his car. He barely leaves the parking lot before his phone rings, and he answers it.

"Great job Carlos!" Cecil says excitedly, sounding much better than earlier. "I just really needed a day off I think, I should be okay by tomorrow."

Carlos smiles. "Anytime Cecil, it was actually kinda fun, and it's given me a lot to investigate in the next few weeks."

"Just stay away from that school, I don't think a third arm would suit you."

Carlos laughs. "Will do. Good night Cecil."

"Goodnight, Carlos."


End file.
